As a cisgender, heterosexual, white person, I have taken the words of my LGBTQ+ friends to heart over the last week and quieted myself so that they and their community could be heard in the wake of the devastation at Pulse in Orlando, Florida.

As a minister, however, I also have a responsibility not to keep silent forever, because my silence might imply my endorsement or approval of the actions of the man who shot and killed/wounded over a hundred members of the Latinx LGBTQ community.

Let me be clear: it is not the will or desire of God (whom I call Thea) that LGBTQ people should be targets of violence. It is not Thea's will that LGBTQ people should in any way change or hide or be ashamed of their sexual identity. Individuals and communities that intentionally marginalize/persecute the LGBTQ community for their sexuality are absolutely wrong to do so, full-stop. These persecutors are the ones who need to change, not the ones they persecute.

I mourn for the precious lives lost and those that were forever changed in this mass shooting. I also mourn for the shooter, whose life was lost fighting the wrong fight. I pray for peace, solace, and love to envelop the LGBTQ community so they might heal and be strengthened to be who they are with enormous pride, and I pray for compassion, a desire for mutual understanding, and forgiveness among all of us, because we could all use much more of that. As for me, I have spent this week letting my LGBTQ friends know that I love them and I'm thinking of them, and I've also spent this week lovingly communicating with those who would promote marginalization of another group, those who follow Islam, in order to show that fundamentalist extremism does not equate or speak for religion as a whole. I've spent this week lifting up those in politics who can make a difference in keeping guns out of the wrong hands. I've done what I could, and I will continue to do what I can to ensure that a tragedy like this is forever a thing of the past. I pray that you and all of us will do the same--not just pray, but take tangible steps to prevent this kind of tragedy from ever taking place again.

I came across this psalm in my prayer today, and it seems to fit:

Psalm 79

O Thea, those who do evil have come among us; they have made Creation a pile of rubble.

They have shed blood like water throughout all of Creation, and there was no one to bury their victims.

Help them and us, O Thea! Change their hearts and ours; let your compassion be swift to meet us all and spread among us.

Help us, O Thea; deliver us and teach us your forgiveness, that we may taste and see the sweetness of your mercy.

O Thea, let the sorrowful sighing of those in chains come before you, and by your great might give hope to those who are condemned to die.

We will give you thanks forever and show forth your praise from age to age.

Elizabeth A. Hawksworth is a published poet and historical fiction writer as well as a prominent blogger on topics of feminism, body positivity, fatphobia, writing, nannying, social justice, and spirituality. She is bold in writing about issues of ultimate concern when remaining silent and unnoticed would be, in the moment, easier. Here is part of her story.

A few hours north of Sarnia, Ontario, there is a quiet place nestled in a forest. Built with rustic logs, smelling like pine pitch, and surrounded by acres of misty trees, this small building stands, institutional and peaceful; utilitarian and somehow unique. In its natural surroundings, staring at a painting of the Baby Jesus, I found God. Prayer, for me, has been a way to get through everyday life. I pray for health. I pray to be a better person. I pray for my family, my friends. I pray for things I want, things I don’t deserve, things I’m desperate about, things I can’t deal with. It’s not a fancy prayer. It’s often a mantra, repeated over and over, sometimes under my breath, sometimes out loud, sometimes mouthed in public places, and sometimes earnestly in the dark. And I pray every night, without fail, before I can close my eyes and sleep. I have to touch base. I have to let Him know. I need You. Please help me. In that church retreat, hidden in the woods, I learned how to pray for more than just myself. I unlocked the talent I had all along – the talent of being able to use my words to change the world for the better. And I never felt closer to God, or more powerful with Him through me than I did then – creating creeds, weaving poetry, sharing with everyone my own personal faith, placing my feet on the path to social justice. If you had asked me then, I would have told you that I didn’t think I would ever be able to part from my relationship with God. How things change. I was badly wounded by the Church when I was a teenager. Shy, uncertain, and angry, I was struggling with my own sexuality and my sense of being. Holding hands with God, or so I thought, I faced the people who, also holding hands with God, told me that I didn’t belong. That I would burn in hell. That I was a sinner, a deliberate sinner, one who was so full of pride and bravado and hubris and lies, that I would never be welcome unless I changed who I was at the core. I had grown up solid in my belief that God makes us in His perfect image, and never makes mistakes. Now, I wasn’t sure if I was wrong, or if they were, but my hurt overwhelmed my faith. I went back at 18, denying who I was. I joined a church of beauty and majesty, of tradition as old as time, and restrictions worse than any other church I’d ever been to. Was it punishment for the supposed sin of who I thought I was? To this day, I can’t answer that. All I know is that everywhere I turned, I found leaders, church members, even the Bible itself, it seemed, telling me that the person I am would never be good enough for God. So I left. And I tried to forget. I’m a rational person, most of the time. I also hold grudges, long after I should. And the hurt faded into twinges and then roared back to life in explosive, fiery anger. I wanted to hurt the Church the way it had hurt me. I wanted to hurt God. I wanted to burn in hell the way they said, just so that I could be myself without pretense, so I could live in sin without consequence and guilt. And inside, I cried out for the God I knew in that quiet forest retreat. I begged Him to help me. I pushed Him away with both hands while simultaneously crying for Him in the night. And to His credit, He hasn’t let me go, though most days, I continue to angrily push and push and push, as hard as I can. He has forgiven me and continues to forgive me, despite all of my anger and moral failings, despite my hurt and my pride. He has quietly proven over and over that He thinks I am good enough for Him. Knowing this, I suspect that one day, I will heal completely from my scars and from my open, bleeding wounds, the way that even the biggest wounds do heal. The scars will always hurt a little, but they won’t always be open and raw, ready to bleed again at another article about Christians saying “God hates fags”, or someone telling me that you can’t be Christian and gay. But here’s the thing about healing. When you forgive someone, you don’t do it for them – not really. They benefit from it. They may think that you are doing them a favour. And maybe, part of healing is to acknowledge that you acted wrongly, too, even if at the time, you don’t think you did. Maybe part of it is to be like God, and not push away your fellow human, even if that fellow human has done cutting, horrible things to your psyche and to your sense of self. The thing about healing is that forgiveness is mostly for you. It’s to reach out with your own humanity and be the bigger person. It doesn’t mean you forget, and it doesn’t mean that you have to draw that person back into your heart. What it does mean is that where the rushing, raging rivers have broken the bridge of faith, forgiveness helps to place new planks, to tie the knots back into the ropes. Where the bridge has rotted in places, forgiveness places brand new materials to make your bridge stronger than ever before. Where the bridge is shaky, forgiveness helps to steady it so that when you walk across it and try to meet God on the other side, it’s not so hard and scary to cross it. Because when it comes to healing, it might take awhile. It might take a long time to rebuild your bridge. And I’m not saying that someone isn’t going to come along and say cutting things that will throw it into disrepair. I’ve rebuilt my bridge many times now . . . and I’ve begged God to help me find the strength to do it again. Your bridge isn’t just to God. Your bridge is to your fellow humans, as well. The ones that put up walls to keep others out – your bridge goes to their door and invites them to come and meet you in the middle. The ones that tell you you’re not welcome – your bridge goes to them and tells them that they are welcome to come and belong with you. And the ones that meet you with hatred – your bridge shows them that the easier path is love. Because maybe the place you’re all trying to reach is that little church retreat in the woods, with the whispering leaves and the distant rush of the many creeks. Maybe the path you all want to walk is the shady wide dirt path with the dappled sunlight through the trees, that wide and welcoming path that has benches to rest on and clear pools to drink from. Maybe the paths we choose are inevitably the harder ones because the stony paths teach you what smooth footing feels like, and we have to learn, in order to grow. Maybe the pain and the blood are something we all experience, even when we’re the ones wielding the swords that hurt. And maybe when it comes to healing, you find it in the silence and the dark, the pleas and the desperation, the fact that when you couldn’t walk anymore, He carried you – and carries you still. Maybe when it comes to healing, it becomes the easier path to take – broken bridge, and all.

Does God take sides?Does God cheer for Israel's victories, or cheer for Israel's losses?Does God pump his fist when Palestine succeeds,or weep when Palestine stumbles?Is God on the sidelines of Gaza, rooting for his team to win?If God were mere manperhaps the Gaza Strip would be one great football fieldand God's whole life would rise and fall according to the victory of his team.The Christians sayGod became flesh and dwelt among usThey say God became mere man.They also say the God-Man's great victory was accepting death on a crossthat others might live.But if Israel and Palestine's men keep taking one another's livesin God's namewho will be left to bear his cross?Perhaps the Second Coming that the Christians await with bated breath(as smart phones offer updates about their team)will be another Incarnation,a child born in the midst of blood and turmoil and rage.Maybe the Second Comingwill bea child born of love spilling overbetween a child of Israel and a child of PalestineMaybe, instead of a crossthere will be a standsilent and gentle and unwaveringPalestinian hand in Israeli handthe fruit of their living bodiesGod's own child, swelling the mother's belly:an invitation to end life no more.What will it take for the beloved children of Godto perceive that the people they murder are the beloved children of Godto understand that the people they hateare their sisters and brothers and fathers and mothersand daughters and sons?What will it take for Jews and Muslimsand Christiansand other religious peopleand anti-religious peopleto quit takingsidesto say"It is done"?Will it take a new Yeshua?A new martyr?A new cross?Will it take a wise mother among many wise motherswho learned long ago that only love can yield a victory?Will it take a woman among many womenwho has seen the futility of this fight all her lifeto rise up and teach the foolish men what they refuse to learn?God, how long before you touch the heartsof the children who think you take sides?How long before you assure them that they are equally,infinitely loved?How long before they cease their fireand offer open arms ofsorrow, repentance, forgiveness?What do you mean to whisper thatthis assurancethis peacethis lovethis transformation of the hardest of hearts in Gazabeginswith my own heart?

Sister Thea Bowman was a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, and she changed the face of the African-American Roman Catholic Church.Sister Thea was a woman who led with joy, story, music, and a sharp intellect. She was a woman who had the power to speak prophetically against injustice in ways that would soften the hearts of even old white bishops--again and again. Her power was the power to tell a story, to preach without a fourth wall, to engage others at the level of senses and emotion and experience.She died from cancer a couple of weeks before I turned eight years old. It was another twenty years before I knew who she was. When I make my solemn profession as a Benedictine Canon next spring, I plan to take Sister Thea's name as my religious name. I see in Sister Thea a bright, strong, gentle, humble, magnetic leader who could tear down any Jericho walls with the dulcimer sounds of her story-telling-and-transforming voice. Do I have the courage to be more than I am? Do I have the humility to let go of my own weighty importance so I can fly with the wild, light Spirit in whom I put my trust and hopes?

If you've never had the experience of participating in a spiritual discernment committee, I invite you to consider it. After my fifth (and final) meeting with my discernment committee for priesthood yesterday evening, my committee confirmed that they heard my call to priesthood. And that's not even the extraordinary part.The extraordinary part is that, as I prayed yesterday before my meeting, I prayed for total surrender to God's will, and for the faithfulness not to run if that will was something my ego didn't like. My total surrender granted me total, deep, quieting peace.The extraordinary part is that, having let go of my attachment to the outcome of my discernment process, I happened to read (during evening prayer) the story in Matthew about the disciples who wanted to know why they couldn't heal the sick on their own when Jesus so easily could. Jesus told them it was because they lacked faith, and that if they had faith even the size of a mustard seed, mountains would move for them. And I realized at that moment that my mustard seed faith was what had moved the mountain of my ego in order to make a straight path for Spirit to enter and dwell deep within my heart.The extraordinary part is that, despite having a clear sense of call when I walked into the process, my sense of call widened and deepened and became more rooted as the dialogue went on. The extraordinary part is that, especially in the final two meetings, as I listened to the challenging questions of my committee members, I perceived Spirit doing the asking. And as I offered my vulnerable, open-hearted answers, I perceived Spirit speaking through me. (It's fair to say that I've never experienced God's voice speaking to me so powerfully as I have in my discernment committee meetings, and for a Benedictine who hears God speaking to her through liturgy and scripture and encounters with others all the time, that's saying a lot.)

The extraordinary part is that, despite my Enneagram-three-personality-type's desire to manage a situation in such a way that the outcome is "positive," I was required to relinquish my ability to do that in order to speak plainly and truthfully. I was painfully aware that my deep honesty could at any moment result in the humiliation of my ego, and I spoke anyway. In that total risk of my ego, I realized it was not my ego that spoke, but Spirit.

When I walked out of my meeting last night, I had no idea what my committee members had heard. I didn't know what they would say. My three-ish ability to anticipate the outcome of the process failed me spectacularly. And I perceived in my failure the possibility of God's success--success in finding a way to make use of the quirky instrument that I am.

My committee is passing me on to the next steps of the discernment process, steps that will be challenging in their own ways. What my committee heard may not be confirmed by the next folks I encounter in the discernment process. But what happens next is not my concern.

The most important piece to emerge for me from this discernment process is the profound recognition that my heart--my whole heart--belongs to the one I call God. Whatever comes, I know that I will be faithful to the path God has prepared for me. I won't turn away. This is God's gig, and I am God's beautiful, imperfect instrument.

What song(s) will God choose to play through me for the uplifting, healing, and reconciling of her creation?

This morning I took one of those silly little online quizzes that a friend of mine posted on Facebook. This one was called, "What Emotion Are You Guided By?"I knew it would only be ten or twelve questions, and I knew that it would either tell me what I wanted to hear or be way off (and either outcome was equally likely), but I have discovered that asking a question--even in an online quiz--can only yield more to think about.So I took the quiz. Its answer? Vulnerability.

You are a very emotional, sensitive person. You act upon your feelings, even if it's hurting you, and your strong and vivid emotions tend to get the best of you. Being vulnerable is not a negative thing - it makes you more aware of other people's emotions and when they might be hurt. Trying to grow a thicker skin might be a good idea, but don't hurry. Keep your tender soul alive for as long as you can, it's precious.

Two things strike me: 1) Vulnerability isn't precisely an emotion, so I wasn't expecting that as a possible answer; and 2) now that I think about it, a number of people who have journeyed with me in recent months have pointed to my increasing vulnerability and what a vital part of me that is.Don't hurry, it says. Keep your tender soul alive for as long as possible, it says. Being vulnerable is not a negative thing. The trouble with vulnerability is that a vulnerable person is always in a position to be hurt--this truth comes to me from too much experience. Nevertheless, throughout the last seven or so months, I have aimed to become as vulnerable as I have ever been. Vulnerability doesn't just make it possible to be hurt; vulnerability makes it possible to heal. Vulnerability makes it possible to be honest. Vulnerability makes it possible to let one's ego go. Vulnerability makes it possible for Spirit to make a rich dwelling for herself in one's midst.As a person of faith, and particularly as a Benedictine Canon, I find that many of my former desires have fallen away to make room for this one great desire: to love and serve God and my neighbor (as Jesus did, and as Spirit inspires me to do). I can't predict the future. I don't know exactly what that love and service will look like in advance. I can't control any of it. I can only listen with the ear of my heart and respond. Vulnerability keeps my own voice from overtaking God's. Vulnerability makes the impossible possible.Total vulnerability means that, no matter how my ego may feel about it, my whole heart is in God's hands, for better or worse.Will I keep faith when I am thrown into the pit and later sold into slavery like Joseph? Will I keep faith when my family and my life are destroyed like Job's? Will I keep faith when I'm asked to stand up to Pharaoh like Moses? Will I keep faith when I meet my dead Lord in the garden like Mary? Will I keep faith when I realize that my role is to decrease like John? In what difficult and extraordinary situations will I find myself saying to God, "Here I am, I have come to do your will"? And when I find myself as Pharaoh's most trusted advisor like Joseph, and when I find myself radically trusting God despite all my loss like Job, and when I perform unforeseen wonders through God's power like Moses, and when I run off to proclaim that God lives like Mary, and when I proclaim the one I love to be greater than I am like John, will my life's purpose find its completion and unbridled joy in God saying to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant"?

Part of my spiritual practice includes lectio divina, or sacred reading. I read a few verses from scripture at a time and ponder them in order to hear God's voice speaking through them.Today I read in the second chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, "This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger."It's so familiar from Christmastime that its oddness almost escapes notice.Why would God's sign to the world be a just-born infant wrapped up like the dead, laid in a feeding trough for large animals? Why would a bunch of sheep-herders run at the chance to see this so-called sign?If you don't know that this child is destined from his birth for death, the mummy look doesn't make sense. If you don't know that by losing his life, this child will become food for all who hunger, this doesn't make sense. How can this bizarre telling of a child's birth make any sense without knowing the whole story that is to come?What signs and wonders does God leave for me to see that I don't yet understand? How do I develop the imagination to see what they could mean and to strive for what God is setting in motion?

My dear friend, Denise, has given me a number of CD's in the past--she gave out CD's as party favors for her daughter's fifth birthday party, and she gave me a couple of CD's to listen to as travel music for our journey out of California and into Arizona. One of the songs on one of those CD's caught my attention a month or two ago: "It’s Amazing" by Jem.It's one of those songs that catches your ear--her cool, low, non-urgent voice makes the song very singable, and my humming has turned to singing as I've listened to the song more closely. I was surprised to realize that this was a song about following the deepest desires of one's heart.Do it, now, you know who you are You feel it in your heart and you're burning with ambition But first, wait, won't get it on a plate You're gonna have to work for it harder an’ harder And I know, ‘cause I've been there before Knocking on the doors with rejection [rejection] And you'll see, ‘cause if it's meant to be Nothing can compare to deserving your dreams This has become an anthem for me, both for my discernment process in particular and for my life in general. The trouble I've discovered with intentional listening is that I often listen through the voices I have heard before, and often the most powerful voices from my past have shut me down.

Patience, now, frustration’s in the air And people who don't care well it's gonna get you down And you'll, fall, yes you will hit a wall But get back on your feet an’ you'll be stronger and smarter And I know, ‘cause I've been there before Knocking down the doors won't take no for an answer And you'll see, ‘cause if it's meant to be Nothing can compare to deserving your dreams It turns out that it was usually the unpowerful voices--the voices who had little if any influence over my opportunities--that urged and whispered and cheered me on, naming my gifts in truth and freedom. As I listen to the prophetic sung words of Jem, I find that the power in the voices of my life is shifting. Don't be embarrassed Don't be afraid Don't let your dreams slip away It's determination and using your gift And everybody has a gift Never give up Never believe the hype Trust your instincts and most importantly You've got nothing to lose So just go for it

The great challenge of my life, at age 32, is to speak with the conviction of my heart without holding back for fear of anything, whether it's fear of being misunderstood, fear of being perceived as arrogant, or fear of being regarded as simply wrong. In order to embrace my conviction, I've had to let go of my ego's desire to manage everyone's image of me and simply present myself and my call--my heart's deepest, most life-giving, energizing desire--as I understand them in their fullness. The conviction of my heart bears a truth that is greater than power. It's amazing, it's amazing All that you can do It's amazing, makes my heart sing Now it's up to you As I continue to listen and speak in my discernment circle, I bring my whole self to the conversation with the intention of being fully seen--by others, by God, and by me. The hardest questions have invited new clarity; the easiest questions have affirmed how much work I've already done to hear God's call for my life. As I seek to balance the voices that invite deeper questioning and voices that deeply affirm, how do I hold all the voices in tension with the longing that God has planted deep within me, which only I can speak?